Reenlisted

[JeffRay]

Don't know if I am the first to, but yesterday I signed to lease a 2017 B250e for 36 months to keep rolling in a B for another 36 months. Since I posted the numbers elsewhere, let me provide the reasons why I did so.

1. I have enjoyed my 2014 B-Class over the last 3 years.

2. Range anxiety? Gotten over it. New 2017 has range extender which my 2014 did not.

3. Superior spacious cabin. Unbeatable vs all but Tesla S. Important for my pre-teenagers.

4. Hope to transition to next generation of longer legged MB or other at good price points.

5. While I could have shrunk down to our two gas cars, I caught the ebug.

6. Deal was good but not great vs. shrinking inventory of B250e, particularly on the east coast.

If anyone wants info on what other dealers were offering, pm me after reading my other post.

Turning in my 2014 today, picking up 2017 Saturday.

 

[barsaec]

Totally understand. We dipped into the EV pool last week and bought a used 2015 over the internet. Other than a MB dealer not knowing how to sell a car out of state, it all worked out eventually. My wife likes the car for her daily run-around.

 

[JeffRay]

Thanks Woody,

The salesperson showed me the 2017 in the garage, it is a twin of the 2014 I turned in save dark wood finish vs brown wood finish and the Electric Drive sticker in the front quarter panels. I wanted to see how alert my daughters were but it is pretty obvious it is new. Plus it has the new car smell.

BTW, the salesperson said they would field offers on my 2014 Be with 9600 miles, no range extender, before they sent it off to NJ to be disposed of, likely to an auction house. PM me if you want his contact info. The tires are the original run flat OEMs with 2000 miles on them before I swapped them out for softer ride non-run flat Michelins.

 

[mddg]

Hey, JeffRay - Add another one to the "reen-list" with another 3 year lease. The car's too good, and the price was too low to resist. It seems the east coast suddenly got a smattering of B250e's, with one or two at many dealers in MD,PA,NJ,..., but still not a ton of these available. This was priced about the same as the best deal I could get on a Nissan Leaf SV (SL was higher) and almost half the price of the BMW i3. The new one has the range plus option which I didn't have in my 2014. It's missing the recuperation paddle "shifters", and it may be missing the radar-based recuperation. Overall, it doesn't seem very different though except for the new car smell.

 

[JeffRay]

Hey mddg,

Great. Yes, mine was MSRP $42.72 and sounds like they stripped it down to make lease more attractive. Yep, no paddles because no radar regen. Doubt your has either. So I put on E+ and always charge up using range plus (why not, its a rental). I suspect mpkwH not as good but you know what, I don't miss messing around with the paddles. Also, mine came with basic sound system which sounds okay to me for talk radio and playing from my smartphone.

Enjoy.

 

[pathiel]

Potentially helpful information for those of you who can't wrap your head around parting with your B-Class.

I visited the MB dealer the other day to ask about some "issues" my car had that I thought I might need to remedy in conjunction with turning in the car at the end of the lease. (Lease end mid Oct 2017.)

Naturally, they wanted to sell me SOMETHING. I told them that I really liked the car (except for the choppy ride and the obvious short range/long re-charge thing), but that I would only consider buying out the lease at a greatly reduced cost. (We had already discussed the fact that MB has announced plans to discontinue the B-Class EV and that the Chevy Bolt has approx. 240 miles range and a fast-charge option). The sales guy checked the contract, said the residual was about $22.5k, and asked me if I had a number in mind.

I told him I wasn't even sure I wanted to do the deal but that, if I was gonna do it, something like $15k might be low enough to get me interested. He wrote it down and went to visit with his boss (for 5 - 10 minutes). When he came back, he countered with something like $21k (can't remember exact number). I told him that's not even close. I repeated that I wasn't even sure I wanted to do the deal, but that maybe I might go with $16k. He went back to his boss. They were BOTH back in less than a minute. The boss told me how his hands were somewhat tied and that he had to make a better deal than I had offered, and then asked if I would go with $18k.

I still said no. I suspect that he still had room to move down, but I could tell that he wasn't going to get down to my number (and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have accepted the deal even at $16k), so I told him that there was no point in continuing to negotiate. (It's hard not to want the range of the Bolt.)

Note: Car had 43,000 miles on it, rear tires were well worn, and windshield had a significant chip in it.

 

[bcurious]

Congrats, Jeffray.
I checked in here today expressly to see if you had made any mention of what you did at the end of your tenure with the 2014. You were a month or two ahead of us getting into ours, so naturally we're approaching that point now. We did not receive an offer in the mail akin to yours mentioned in August.
Naturally, our call option on the car is out of the money, so we don't plan to exercise it, although we do still like the car.
The new lease offers for the 2017 model seems to apply, if I'm reading and understanding properly, only to the examples without the full gamut of safety and convenience options, and not pro-rata to all B250e available. For us, that could be a deal killer.
CarMax seems to offer a decent selection of used 2014s, but their ask prices are around the purchase option strike prices from the original lease agreements. One born every minute, and all that, but having an idea of what these are going for at auction makes that seem like a gouge - especially given that the way that they list them online requires that the buyer be more product savvy than the seller in order to even discern which features the cars have.
Perhaps, as we prepare to turn them in, we should submit our vins here for those looking to pick up one with a known history. Knowing whether a particular car has been a victim of the sudden stalling and no-start problem, the results of annual battery certifications, maintenance performed, and software recall performance status would be of interest to some buyers here.

 

[JeffRay]

Thanks BC,

To save you the trouble of reading various posts, here is a summary of what I gleaned about MB 250e.

1. Yes, the incentives apply to the basic version (which I got).

2. CA dealers seemed willing to deal as they have a bunch of the 2017s. I actively engaged Encino salesperson. They were competitive and I didn't really push them. Opening lease offer assumed $2500 dealer incentive plus $7500 fed tax incentive. They had to pass along shipping charge cross country and agreed to cover last two lease payments. If you want, I can pm you the salesperson. With nothing down, the monthly ran into mid $500s, 36 months, 7500 miles per year. Based on other members post, you can do better like closer to $7500 dealer incentive (check his post).

3. Another member just posted that he got dealer down from $22.5K to $18K to buy his used 2014. I hear they sell to auction houses for about $17.5K so this is a loss they would have to absorb so why not sell to customer. My dealer would not sell to me but said they could sell direct to someone else. Mine had 9800 miles!

4. I don't drive mine enough to mind not having all the features that I had in my loaded 2014. I did pick up range plus and it had heated seats. The standard stereo is more than fine, miss the navigation map but not enough to buy it from parts or eBay. Main loss was radar regeneration which helped a touch with range but never think about not having paddles anymore.

5. No good deals on used one except maybe mine when it hits as it had low mileage. 2014 black loaded with less than 10K miles.

I do think that if I was more patient, I could have gotten a lease deal that would have resulted in a monthly in the mid-$400s but I was not patient enough. Love my 2017 so all good.

 

[Groshyubcha]

NJ NY and MA have the best selection. Boston has a $48k MSRP model with Premium 3, heated seats, xenon lights. Everyone else seams to have the stripper model at $42k. As a commuter car it works. Dealers are looking to move them! NJ: Engelwood, Cherry Hill, Atlantic City. NY: Long Island MA: Boston x 2. This is what I have seen. Leases much better than an i3 as of now. We will see how aggressive it will become!

 

[GlennD]

I leased a B250E with premium 3 and blind spot assist. It was 48985 list and I leased it for 32900. It has all the toys that my 2014 had plus paddles and blind spot.

 

[JeffRay]

As someone who leased a "stripper" 2017 for my daily commute in NY, I say "bleh" to all you lucky enough to live in a CARB state and got great deals on the fully-loaded ones!

Joking, I am fine with a so-called basic but luxury car.

 

[fkrull]

I leased a B250E with premium 3 and blind spot assist. It was 48985 list and I leased it for 32900. It has all the toys that my 2014 had plus paddles and blind spot.

GlennD, can you please share what your monthly payments are (including tax) and how much money you put down?
Thank you!

 

[GlennD]

As someone who leased a "stripper" 2017 for my daily commute in NY, I say "bleh" to all you lucky enough to live in a CARB state and got great deals on the fully-loaded ones!

Joking, I am fine with a so-called basic but luxury car.

The dealer had 2 white and two black strippers and only one white fully loaded one. Most dealers had only the stripper cars in stock. What good is a great deal on a car I do not want. My 2014 had a high 49K list and I leased it for 34K. There are really good deals in California.

My deal was similar to my 2014 lease.

 

[GlennD]

Since I folded in a loss on my VW I do not want to share the details. The lease is $45 less than my 2014.

 

[JupiterRed]

Just cut a deal on a 2017 to replace my leased 2014. 2 year lease for the roughly the same payment as my 2014. $6 more per month. All the paperwork is not done but the list on the car is 47780 and got about 16K off so the lease is based off of 31780. Car has essential the same features as my old one. Add CarPlay, Black Headliner, and Range Extender, delete Illuminated Door sills. My wife loves the car and in 2 years we hope the EQA and EQC are out and we can have more range and more to choose from.

 

[in2insight]

JupiterRed, that sounds like a great deal.
May I ask, is the 31780 before acquisition fee and any add ons or after, and what is the acquisition fee? Also, how many miles per year?
Cheers,

 

[JeffRay]

Cmon in2insight, join this exclusive club. Give it another test drive if you are not sure.

 

[in2insight]

Cmon in2insight, join this exclusive club. Give it another test drive if you are not sure.

I did!
Since the car is coming from another dealer, I have a tiny chance to make changes, but overall the deal I got is pretty solid.

 

[JeffRay]

ALL RIGHT! ENJOY THE RIDE!

 

[WantOne]

2 payments away and counting to re-enlist a 2017 one.

One question though, if I have a barebone without multimedia package, what’s the likelihood getting a GPS module attached to my screen? It’s just a bit easier to read the factory monitor than my phone from time to time.